LibGuides: A select list of music scores: Joyce KOH

Biography

As a recipient of the Nadia Boulanger International Foundation Scholarship (France), Joyce Koh studied with Tristan Murail in 1996-97. The following year, she was selected for the course in Composition and Musical Computing at the Institute for the Research and Co-ordination in Acoustic and Music, IRCAM (Paris). In the same year, she was awarded the Young Artist Award 1998 by the Singapore National Arts Council.

Source

Music Scores

Au bord de l'ombre : for accordion and electronics, 1998
"Though in Au bord de l'ombre, there is no explicit translation of a praticular Chinese character from the visual gesture to aural, the idea is not too distant in the conception. The electronic part principally behaves as a counterpoint to the accordion, alluding to the depth and density of the ink stroke while it is being exoressed onto the canvas. Metaphorically speaking, the accordionist, thus could be likened to the calligrapher, the musical phrases of the accordionist to the brush strokes and the timbral shading in the electronics to the density of the ink strokes." - [p. i]
Several worlds for Chinese flutes, sheng, zheng, 2 violins, viola and cello 2005
"The 9 movements can be performed as independent pieces or as a collection. Each movement expresses a musical idea.
thinning ice has a distinct direction from the high to the low registers in a dense texture while on thin ice, also for string quartet, progresses from isolated notesto form figures, then to become phrases and eventually chords. each one into and into each other are for duos; the former for zheng and dizi, and the latter for zheng and cello. leaf falling and fallen leaf share almost similar instrumentation and musical material. rain playing and playing rain are the livelier movements of the collection. several worlds is a tutti movement, pulling together the threads of the earlier movements" - [p. i]
Six hermits : a collection of three pieces for soprano, alto, tenor and baritone and Chinese traditional instruments : sheng, xiao and erhu
"Six hermits is based on the life and work of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove - seven legendary Chinese figures from the end of the Wei dynasty. The seventh figure, Wang Rong, known for his wealth and avarice, is not included, as none of his works was preserved. The fascinating tales of their regular meetings under the bamboo grove tell a story of drunken revelry, irreverent humour and daring provocation, as well as a love of art and nature, and freedom of expression. Their refusal to partake in the affairs of the world and their constant state of inebriation protected them from the harsh reality of a repressive regime. One of them, Xi Kang, was tragically executed in the Marketplace of Luoyang" - [p. i]